Colourful costumes and high hopes at Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple, as devotees burn first incense sticks of Year of the Snake.

Wisps and clouds of smoke rose into the air at Buddhist and Daoist temples around Asia on Wednesday as people lit incense to pray for good luck in the Year of the Snake.

Lunar New Year festivals and prayers are marking the start of the Year of the Snake around Asia and the world.

The ritual began around 11.30pm at the temple’s main hall, where committee members and elders placed joss sticks in a large ...

Hundreds of people lined up in the hours before midnight at the Wong Tai Sin Taoist temple in Hong Kong ... dishes and place them on a home altar as a mark of respect to their ancestors.

The prayers began late on the eve of the New Year in Hong Kong, where people annually line up at a Taoist temple to try ... was the Temple of Earth, a royal altar in imperial times.